An excursion into certain areas of art, computers, philosophy, text, zombies, alchemy, metallurgy, music, food, creativity, pataphysics, politics, France where I worked as a cultural civil servant (yes, I do know that this is appalling), Berlin where I live and work for me, England where I come from, and so on... this may change.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

"I absolutely LOVE this book! I've always enjoyed napkin folding, and it's a treat when I visit a hotel that takes time to fold a simple point on their toilet paper rolls. When I saw this book, I was blown away by the gorgeous designs. Even better, they are not difficult to master!"

I started with the most difficult design, and found the step-by-step pictures so easy to follow. I'm already hoping for a second volume. This book is so much fun. I've been leaving toilegami in restrooms all over now--restaurants, rest stops on the freeway, theatre bathrooms, friends homes. What a treat this is! ...Shrink

"I wanted to add yet another extra little touch to the Bed and Breakfast experience for my guest at the Sleigh Maker Inn in Westborough, MA, so I purchased this book. I can now leave the TP in the guests bathrooms looking pretty. Most of the folds in the book are fairly simple"

"A neighbor shared this book with me. I made several of the easy patterns and fell in love with it. We gave it as a Christmas present to several friends and relatives and they were delighted with it. The directions are easy to follow. This would be a great project book for kids for cheap mother's day presents. I loved it!"

"I purchased this book so I could so learn to make special little TP folds for our upcoming B&B. There are some very pretty flowers to make (way too time consuming) and fortunately there are quite a few folds you can make in little time."

"I am in the accommodation industry and found a couple of folds that are quick, easy and look good. I can do the folds quickly and it is something different for guests. Some of the other folds are quite elaborate and would be nice when you have more time. I am satisfied with the couple I am now using all the time."

Question 2.

"Was Karl Marx an active Satanist?…The young Karl Marx was a believing Christian, as his earliest writings demonstrate, but at an early stage his love for Christ, for some unknown reason, turned into hate, and his thinking is radically changed. In his youth Marx wrote poetry, and in his poems he starts revealing horrific thoughts. Filled with venom, they tell us about self-idolizing and dreams of destruction and usurpation of God. …He knows that he will fail: "I know it full well, my soul - once true to God - is chosen for hell". In one poem he confesses that he has bought a sword from the prince of darkness. This is significant, as the introduction rite to the Satanist order involves buying a sword from Satan, paying with one's soul. Other poems, too, contain allusions to Satanic rites, for instance one named Oulanem (a distortion of Immanuel). Marx' housekeeper told that her master was a pious man. He used to kneel on his bedroom and pray with black candles burning. Karl Marx' correspondence with his family members contain some strange details. He calls his son "dear devil" and is himself titled "highpriest" - an office that does not exist in any other religion than Satanism (except ancient Judaism, a religion that he rejected emphatically). His doughter has also told that he used to tell scaring fairy tales to his children, about people who sold their souls to the devil. Marx' appearance is also worth considering. Though having a beard was not uncommon in his age, it was by no means common to let it grow shaggy as he did. In the Satanist order of Joanna Woolcott, however, this was the praxis. Wurmbrand offers more arguments and their cumulative effect is, in my opinion, convincing. This side of Karl Marx has of course been suppressed, not least beacause those who are interested in him usually do not want to believe it. It is interesting to notice that when the Communist party of India decided to make a rebuttal of the book, all they came up to was a plead to judge Marxism on its own value and not to care about the religious views of its architect."

"This really should be required reading here in America with our new administration! Scary?, yes! Necessary information?, Definitely!!! We have an admitted Marxist turned communist in the White House advising our president(B.O.)! Does anyone care?"

"The biggest issue that liberals (who are basically "softcore Marxists" that use subtle propaganda rather than open revolutionary violence) have with the world is the influence that traditional religion, in particular, Christianity, wields…it makes sense that a Satanic cult would use classical Marxism as a front to achieve its ends in destroying the worship of Christ. Communism, as articulated in Marx and Engles' _Communist Manifesto_, states that human society is the product of competition between various classes of economic status. Marx's demands for radical social revolution have been institutionalized in the government, academia, and even in many churches today, furthering the humanist New World Order based on the Luciferian principle of autonomy and rebellion against the Divine Order."

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

The British literary journal the TLS, or Times Literary Supplement, has recently been asking this question, in a debate to which I have contributed. (The TLS and New Scientist would be the two journals that no-one with any claim to culture, and enough money to buy or subscribe, could possibly be without.)

Since 'Pataphysics is both easy and impossible to define, that being the nature of the subject, I came up with a description which, I think, is both excellent and true.

It is that 'Pataphysics is to physics (and hence the "real") as the imaginary number i, the square root of -1, is to the "real numbers" (the scale along which one finds 1,2,3… in one direction and -1, -2, -3 in the other).

The graph above shows what I mean. It will be seen that if one follows the "negative" "real" axis to the left, one reaches the "unreal" - this is not the same as the imaginary or 'Pataphysical of course. The unreal relates directly to the real; Derrida would, I think, have said that the unreal necessarily comes along with the real and vice-versa, in a text or in art and probably anywhere. A question remains - what is the "negative" aspect of the 'Pataphysical axis? Well, of course it's still 'Pataphysical! That's another definition of 'Pataphysics, for free.

i, or the 'Pataphysical, is an imaginary component that can be combined with the "real" to give a complex (with both real and imaginary dimensions) that can enable operations or experiments, concepts etc., which would be impossible without it.

An ashtray is an ashtray, but a 'Pataphysical ashtray needs another dimension, other than the "real", to make sense of it. It thus calls the ashtray into question.

Of course, our perception of this space is rather different from the logical or mathematical representation, and might best be depicted by an image such as the following - or indeed any other…The burnt edges signify that this is just a fragment of a larger whole.

Monday, August 24, 2009

A so-called civilised, democratically elected government finds it expedient to protect a man who bombed an airliner causing huge civilian casualties. Disregarding calls from countries affected and by the families who lost their loved ones, acting in defiance of the law, of morality and of humanity, the government is STILL protecting this man.

Yes, Luis Posada Carriles, whom even declassified CIA and FBI documents allege was "one of the engineers of the 1976 terrorist bombing of Cubana Airlines flight 455 that killed 73 passengers", was protected by the Bush administration, and still is now. His extradition to Venezuela (amongst other countries) where he is wanted for this crime, has been blocked again and again. He was allegedly on the CIA payroll.

He was welcomed and celebrated as a hero by the Cuban community in Florida, USA.

Surely a boycott of American goods, particularly by the Scots, is in order? How about refusing all imports of hypocrisy?

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

This used condom, already the subject of intense speculation and pilgrimages to the little-known town of Vierzon, in the French Région Centre, was found by a dog and brought home, abandoned in the yard and then rediscovered by Madame Y., the dog's owner.

She said (quoted in The Berry Républicain, the local newspaper which first broke the story) "I was a loyal Catholic, but do not think that God would have chosen to put the Pope's representation into such an object without reason. It may be that the Pontiff's recent statements in Africa that Capôtes Anglaises (French letters) make AIDS worse has something to do with it, because even I know that he must have been drunk or joking, perhaps the both, and that is not suitable for a man of his rank."

The condom has been frozen inside an ice-cube made from holy water in an attempt to preserve the contents for possible DNA analysis, with some believers asserting that if God put the image into the "preservatif" then the contents too must be of divine origin, though the Church has already issued a statement underlining the fact that God would certainly not use a condom if the man Ratzinger had prohibited it (AFP, April 1 2009).

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

For pedagogical reasons, I have been invited to prepare an English meal for about 100 people, in France. After much consideration I decided, before the usual second course of English cheeses, sweet wholemeal biscuits, celery and port, to prepare oysters in bacon with puréed potatoes.It's a fundamentally simple dish when prepared for 4 or 5 people but quantitative expansion brings qualitative problems.

Oysters are removed from their shells, they and their liquor separated and kept to one side. The oysters will be wrapped in bacon, fixed with a toothpick…

…flash-grilled and served on a small mountain of purée, made with the oysters' liquor: mashed potatoes that taste of the sea. The bacon is crispy, but the oyster it protects is merely lukewarm.

Fortunately, a nearby restaurant is lending me its kitchen for three hours, and a team of twelve people will open the many, many oysters. Had the restaurant not offered this help, the enrobed oysters would have been cooked using a welding torch or small flame-thrower.

I have been conducting experiments at home, in the kitchen above, as to the mash, and it is these that I wanted to share with you, since it is not at all obvious what sort of purée should be used with oysters on the one hand and smoked bacon on the other.

Even to open my own dozen oysters provide a problem. I had no oyster knife, and Berliners are strangers to good sea food, so none were in the shops. I had to use, variously, a pair of scissors, an ordinary knife and a spoon. This worked, though the juices had to be sieved to remove bits of shell.

Then: there is no decent bacon in Berlin. Not under that name anyway. There is so-called "breakfast bacon" in the shops, but it is a thin, tasteless, miserable product, pumped up with water which oozes out as you try to fry it. However, there is the excellent smoked belly of pork called Speck, and this, in its lean version, is just like good old British smokey bacon.

So the oysters were opened, and their liquor kept in a wine glass…

…a large amount of potatoes was boiled, creamed with butter, salt, pepper and the oyster juices and kept warm whilst different flavours were added to 4 different parts of it, leaving one in its "original" condition.

I decided to try Parmesan cheese, caramelised onions, smoked chili and garlic, and French Provençale mustard, endeavouring to keep the different additives apart.

Most were disgusting. But the caramelised onions went best with the purée de pommes de terre aux huîtres, and it is that combination, served in industrial quantities, that will grease the lips of the terrified French.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Pyongyang, January 21 (KCNA) -- An exhibition of posters calling for intensifying the drive to implement the joint New Year editorial opened at the Pyongyang International Cultural Centre on Tuesday.

On display there are more than 70 posters instilling confidence and courage into all the servicepersons and people in the general advance to implement the joint editorial.

"Let all of us turn out in the drive for implementing the tasks laid down in the joint editorial!" and "Let us bring about a new great revolutionary upswing on all fronts in the same spirit as displayed by the workers of Kangson!" and other posters truthfully represent the revolutionary spirit of the Korean people waging the general offensive united closer around the party.

Such posters as "Let us exalt the dignity and might of Songun Korea with the mental power of all the servicepersons and people!" and "World, look at the spirit of Songun Korea!" fully reflect the firm resolution and mettle of the servicepersons and people to surely open the gate of a great prosperous and powerful nation.

Among them are posters "Let us bring about collective innovations!" and "For independence, democracy and reunification!" with diverse themes reflecting the contents of the joint editorial.

Also displayed in the venue are at least 80 works created by artists of different art studios while experiencing the pulsating reality of the general advance in the new year."

Monday, January 05, 2009

Harold Pinter, who died at Christmas, wrote in 1958 and expanded in 2005 something which makes clear that the worry about "yes and no, true and false" etc. at the heart of any Zombie, Post-Modern or scientific discourse (which must recognise the tentative nature of reality) is swept away by the simple recognition that we have different responsibilities at different levels of thinking, of acting in and on the world.

1958: "There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false."

Nobel Prize speech of 2005: "I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?"

Is there, however not a contradiction here? No. Both statements are simultaneously true (smile).Here is Pinter's speech for the Nobel Prize.